Star Trek: *hits blunt* The higher, the fewerrrrrr

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Ghost Leviathan: Mar 2, 2017; Exploration is ill-advised.

Al Borland Corpse posted:

Maybe they watch it like the federation is America and they go around outsmarting every kooky alien foreigner

That's not really a lot far off the message of a lot of episodes.

# ? Nov 5, 2018 11:43

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# ? Jun 5, 2024 13:45

galenanorth: May 19, 2016

Al Borland Corpse posted:

Maybe they watch it like the federation is America and they go around outsmarting every kooky alien foreigner

human supremacists who subconsciously note that the Federation had four founding civilizations but like 70% of the Federation-aligned characters are human

# ? Nov 5, 2018 11:43

Sarcastr0: May 29, 2013; WON'T SOMEBODY PLEASE THINK OF THE BILLIONAIRES ?!?!?

quote:

When and Why did the Federation Turn Socialist? - A Question I Hope Will be Answered in the New Star Trek Movie:
Peter Suderman gives a positive review to the new Star Trek movie that premiered today, but notes that it focuses more on personal issues than political ones. It will be interesting to see the young Kirk, Spock, and McCoy. But I hope the movie answers an important question about that has always perplexed me about the Star Trek universe: When and why did the Federation turn socialist?

As I explained in one of my most widely read articles, Star Trek's Federation (or at least Earth) is definitely socialist by the time of the New Generation series, and probably the time of the original series that focused on the Enterprise commanded by Captain Kirk. By "socialist," I mean an economy where all large enterprises are controlled by the government, not merely a market economy where there is regulation or a welfare state. Despite Republican rhetoric to the contrary, Barack Obama is not a socialist; but he would be one if he sought to nationalize all major enterprises and abolish the use of money, as Star Trek's Federation seems to have done.

By the time of the original series, the Federation already lacks any currency (which is necessary to run a large-scale market economy), and all large enterprises seem to be government-owned; this is even more clearly the case in TNG. However, Star Trek's future Earth wasn't always that way. In Enterprise, the series set in the period just before the founding of the Federation, we see many private firms still in existence, including even privately owned space colonies and interstellar freighters. And Earth still has currency at that time. Thus, the Federation's transition to socialism probably took place sometime between 2161 (the end of Enterprise and the founding of the Federation) and 2245 (the beginning of Kirk's "five year mission" in the original series). The new Star Trek movie, which covers the days of Kirk's youth, is set right in the middle of the transition period (the early 2200s). So what caused the transition to socialism during that time? Was there a sudden violent socialist revolution, as happened in Russia in 1917? Or was there a lengthy transition caused by a gradual expansion of government until it gradually took over the entire economy? Bryan Caplan points out that the Earth portrayed in the new movie seems to have experienced very little economic growth over the previous two centuries. That suggests a slow transition over a long period of time. The low growth could be the result of gradually increasing government control choking off the private sector.

Obviously, the most likely answer to my question is that the writers of the TV series' and movies simply didn't think very hard about developing a realistic economic and political history for Earth and the Federation. However, the issue is of more than pedantic interest. Star Trek is a cultural icon watched by tens of millions. Many more people will derive their vision of what the future should be at least partially from Star Trek than from reading serious scholarship. Law professor Benjamin Barton wrote that "no book released in 2005 will have more influence on what kids and adults around the world think about government than The Half-Blood Prince [of the hugely popular Harry Potter series]." Similarly, no nonfiction book of the last few decades is likely to have more influence on how people see the future than Star Trek. If Star Trek continues to portray a socialist future as basically unproblematic, and even implies that a transition to full-blown socialism can be achieved without any major trauma, that is a point worth noting.

With rare exceptions, the Star Trek franchise has been far too blase in its portrayal of future socialism and its implications. After all, socialist regimes have been responsible for the death and impoverishment of millions. There has never been a society that combined full-blown socialism with prosperity or extensive "noneconomic" liberties for the population. And there has never been a transition to socialism without large-scale repression and mass murder. If Star Trek's writers want to posit a new form of socialism that somehow avoids the shortcomings of all previous ones, they should at least give us some sense of how this new and improved socialism escaped the usual pitfalls. Had a similarly prominent pop culture icon been equally obtuse in its portrayal of fascism or even milder forms of right-wing oppression (e.g. - by portraying a rightist military dictatorship that seems to work well and benefits the people greatly without any noticeable loss of personal freedom), it would have been universally pilloried.

Despite this criticism, I still like many things about Star Trek, and I certainly think it is often fun to watch. Political ideology is not the only noteworthy aspect of a science fiction universe, or even the most important. I don't ask that the producers of Star Trek incorporate my political views into the series. I do wish, however, that they would consider the implications of their own more seriously.

UPDATE: I'm sure various readers will claim that socialism in Star Trek works well because they have transporters and replicators, which supposedly eliminate all economic scarcity. If resources are completely unlimited, the argument goes, it doesn't matter if they are used inefficiently. But as I pointed out in this post, there is in fact economic scarcity in the Star Trek universe, because not everything can be replicated (e.g. - power sources for starships and replicators themselves). Moreover, the Federation and other nations in that universe wage war over the control of planets and other assets, which implies that they can't be replicated either. It's also worth noting that replicators seem to be a government monopoly in the Federation, at least on Earth; I don't think we ever see a private replicator owned by a human Federation citizen. That has some troubling implications of its own.

UPDATE #2: Some commenters doubt that there really wasn't any currency in Star Trek. I refer them to this interview with Star Trek screenwriter Ronald D. Moore [HT: commenter Jim Hu], who later also produced Battlestar Galactica:

Question: I've been wondering this since I saw FC: What ever happened to Federation Standard Credits as established in "The Trouble With Tribbles," and, I believed, mentioned (though I don't remember where) in TNG?

Moore: All I know is that by the time I joined TNG, Gene [Roddendery, the creator of Star Trek] had decreed that money most emphatically did NOT exist in the Federation, nor did "credits" and that was that. Personally, I've always felt this was a bunch of hooey, but it was one of the rules and that's that. Fortunately DS9 [Deep Space 9] isn't part of the Federation, so currency could make a back-door re-entry into our story-telling.

So there may have still been credits as a kind of residual currency in the original series. Perhaps it could only be used in government-owned stores and facilities to acquire goods at government-set prices. In the USSR, for example, especially privileged citizens could shop at special stores to which only a small elite had access; Star Fleet officers (the people we see getting credits) might fall into that category. In any event, the socialist government of the Federation eventually abolished them.

UPDATE #3: In a series encompassing hundreds of TV episodes and a dozen movies, there will inevitably be inconsistencies. Therefore, I can't deny that there are probably some scenes in there that seem to contradict my general thesis that the Federation is socialist, including some mentioned by various commenters. Nonetheless, I think there are two consistent patterns that support my position. First, prominent characters such as Captain Picard and Kirk repeatedly state that there is no money in the Federation. This is confirmed as part of the rules for the TV series' by Star Trek screenwriter Ronald D. Moore. Obviously, it is impossible to run a large-scale market economy without currency of some kind. Second - as far as I can tell - we never see any large privately owned enterprises in any of the Star Trek series set after the founding of the Federation. We never hear such of such enterprises being mentioned, or see their brand names on any goods. They are absent even in episodes that include civilian settings. This is a striking omission, given the wide range of issues covered in the vast Star Trek ouevre. Tellingly, none of the commenters (many of whom seem to know far more about Star Trek than I do) have managed to cite any counterexamples. Even if one or two counterexamples do turn up in an isolated single episode, it would not be enough to outweigh the whole rest of the series. The combination of the lack of any large-scale private enterprise and the lack of currency strongly suggest that the Federation is socialist.

http://volokh.com/posts/1241844798.shtml

# ? Nov 5, 2018 12:15

Nessus: Dec 22, 2003; After a Speaker vote, you may be entitled to a valuable coupon or voucher!

I think that's the guy who said he couldn't morally justify taxation to raise money to shoot down an asteroid, because the asteroid would not be infringing on anyone's rights, although I think he (might be she? unsure) went on to say that obviously they understood this was extending their argument to the absurd, they were just willing to be absurd.

# ? Nov 5, 2018 12:23

PostNouveau: Sep 3, 2011; VY till I die; Grimey Drawer

I would also love to see how the awesome space communist utopia works.

Why do people still work? Why is Ben Sisko's dad running a restaurant back on earth? How do you determine who gets to run a restaurant? Are there people voluntarily working the menial jobs that make a restaurant work even though they can all live comfortably without jobs? Why is everyone in starfleet gunning for that next promotion when there's a scarcity-free utopia waiting for them back at home? Is Jean-Luc's brother some kind of Luddite who refuses to participate in space communism? Does he face any repercussions for that? Is he alone in that or is there a whole movement resisting utopian space communism?

I'm hoping the new Picard series spends at least a little time on earth.

# ? Nov 5, 2018 12:28

Nessus: Dec 22, 2003; After a Speaker vote, you may be entitled to a valuable coupon or voucher!

PostNouveau posted:

I would also love to see how the awesome space communist utopia works.

Why do people still work? Why is Ben Sisko's dad running a restaurant back on earth? How do you determine who gets to run a restaurant? Are there people voluntarily working the menial jobs that make a restaurant work even though they can all live comfortably without jobs? Why is everyone in starfleet gunning for that next promotion when there's a scarcity-free utopia waiting for them back at home? Is Jean-Luc's brother some kind of Luddite who refuses to participate in space communism? Does he face any repercussions for that? Is he alone in that or is there a whole movement resisting utopian space communism?

I'm hoping the new Picard series spends at least a little time on earth.

I'd be interested if they look at this, at least if they aren't going to take the attitude that only by adopting the blessings of neoliberalist capitalism more or less as constituted in 2018 can true moral virtue be achieved. But I think Stewart would shoot them with the weirding module.

If they wanted they could cite some Tellarite econometricist whose work, slightly adapted, permitted abundance and plenty for all. It's a cop out but you also don't need a second edition of Das Kapital to explain how the future economy works differently.

# ? Nov 5, 2018 12:36

MikeJF: Dec 20, 2003

PostNouveau posted:

Are there people voluntarily working the menial jobs that make a restaurant work even though they can all live comfortably without jobs?

I decided last time this came up that if you go to a restaurant you have to help put your own drat dishes in the dishdereplicator, and if you don't people go tut tut and you're not welcome to come back.

Transition all these social ideas from 'customers' to 'participants'.

MikeJF fucked around with this message at 13:14 on Nov 5, 2018

# ? Nov 5, 2018 13:11

8one6: May 20, 2012; When in doubt, err on the side of Awesome!

Imagine it, a future where you don't have to worry about affording food or housing or clothes so you wait tables because you honestly do enjoy meeting new people everyday and the minor inconvenience of taking orders and moving plates from the table to the dish recycler is worth it.

And there's no crippling debt or fear of being fired keeping you from telling some rude rear end in a top hat customer to take a slingshot time travel trip around the nearest sun to go back in time and gently caress himself when he's being an entitled prick!

# ? Nov 5, 2018 13:27

Blade_of_tyshalle: Jul 12, 2009; If you think that, along the way, you're not going to fail... you're blind.

There's no one I've ever met, no matter how successful they are, who hasn't said they had their failures along the way.

I do like the idea of people working for Sisko's dad as a way to either apprentice under him or to learn other managerial skills. His employees don't "have" to work there or they go homeless, they work there because something about the work interests them.

# ? Nov 5, 2018 13:29

Ghost Leviathan: Mar 2, 2017; Exploration is ill-advised.

And the whole idea that most people will sit around and do nothing if not required to work to not die is pretty clearly bunk anyway. It's not like people don't pour time and money into hobbies with no expectation of returns.

# ? Nov 5, 2018 13:32

FlamingLiberal: Jan 18, 2009; Would you like to play a game?

Ah yes, my favorite series Star Trek: The New Generation

# ? Nov 5, 2018 13:53

Q_res: Oct 29, 2005; We're fucking built for this shit!

MikeJF posted:

I decided last time this came up that if you go to a restaurant you have to help put your own drat dishes in the dishdereplicator, and if you don't people go tut tut and you're not welcome to come back.

This is seems dumb and absolutely wrong. Grandpa Sisco clearly had busboys and waiters working for him. So it pretty clearly doesn't work the way you're saying.

Honestly, it doesn't really make sense no matter how you look at it. Sure people would do stuff, but who would volunteer to work as a busboy?

Maybe there's some sort of hellish work-for-reward system. Maybe there's nicer apartments, hover cars, et cetera that you can request. However in exchange you have to take a job assignment from the government and put in a minimum number of hours in order to be allowed to have those nicer amenities. Of course, enrolling in Starfleet grants you unlimited access to the top tier of privileges and amenities.

I mean, if you want to twist the Federation into some neo-Soviet hellhole.

# ? Nov 5, 2018 14:01

Epicurius: Apr 10, 2010; College Slice

I mean, some sort of basic income idea would work. You get enough to live reasonably comfortably, and there's nothing stopping you from sitting around doing nothing all day. But if you want more; if you want to transport to Paris to see the Eiffel Tower, of you want to take a shuttle to Ares City to enjoy the Martian Independence Day celebrations, if you want to eat at a real restaurant instead of the public replimat, you should be doing some sort of productive work.

Epicurius fucked around with this message at 14:38 on Nov 5, 2018

# ? Nov 5, 2018 14:35

Eighties ZomCom: Sep 10, 2008

Clearly the waiters are holograms.

# ? Nov 5, 2018 14:49

Grand Fromage: Jan 30, 2006; L-l-look at you bar-bartender, a-a pa-pathetic creature of meat and bone, un-underestimating my l-l-liver's ability to metab-meTABolize t-toxins. How can you p-poison a perfect, immortal alcohOLIC?

I have known people who genuinely enjoy being restaurant waitstaff and keep doing it instead of changing jobs. It's not poo poo to do to pay the bills, it's an actual career choice.

I get it either. :shrug:

But I'm a little envious. "A waiter" is an extremely achievable dream job.

# ? Nov 5, 2018 15:10

Winifred Madgers: Feb 12, 2002

You guys are really disappearing up your own rear end (granted, I could come in to a Star Trek thread at virtually any point of discussion and say the same thing). Nobody watches Star Trek because of the economics, which are for the most part throwaway lines. Most people just take it in stride as part of the setting, like FTL and transporters, and even less so because it's brought up far less often.

Also I posted something like this in I think the Orville thread some time ago, but a lot of the values and ideals promoted on the show are pretty universal. Just in the setting of Starfleet alone you've got loyalty, both personal and professional, as well as courage, grand adventure and wonder, and a sense of duty, not solely to the laws and regulations, but to higher ideals and morality that are taken for granted as independent of and superseding them. Lol if you attribute all positive ideals to only those on your ideological side - oftentimes we divide up not on goals or ideals, but on competing methods or means of achieving them.

# ? Nov 5, 2018 15:13

Phylodox: Mar 30, 2006; College Slice

Grand Fromage posted:

I have known people who genuinely enjoy being restaurant waitstaff and keep doing it instead of changing jobs. It's not poo poo to do to pay the bills, it's an actual career choice.

I get it either. But I'm a little envious. "A waiter" is an extremely achievable dream job.

I used to have a friend who basically lost his mind after Trump got elected, and he started spending all of his time trying to come up with a master plan to �fix� society. This was basically his solution, only taken to a ridiculous extreme. In addition to shipping all rich people off to an island somewhere, he said that money is unnecessary because any job society needs could be filled by someone for whom it was basically a fetish. Garbage needs collecting? Someone gets off on that. Sewage pipes need unclogging? Someone gets off on that. This ignores the fact that, yeah, while there�s probably a person out there who gets a boner at the idea of wading through lovely pipes, there certainly aren�t enough shitfuckers to keep every major city�s poo poo pipes running smoothly, and the pipes getting unclogged shouldn�t have to wait for some perv�s refractory period.

Needless to say, I stopped talking to him after that.

# ? Nov 5, 2018 15:25

corn in the bible: Jun 5, 2004; Oh no oh god it's all true!

Phylodox posted:

I used to have a friend who basically lost his mind after Trump got elected, and he started spending all of his time trying to come up with a master plan to �fix� society. This was basically his solution, only taken to a ridiculous extreme. In addition to shipping all rich people off to an island somewhere, he said that money is unnecessary because any job society needs could be filled by someone for whom it was basically a fetish. Garbage needs collecting? Someone gets off on that. Sewage pipes need unclogging? Someone gets off on that. This ignores the fact that, yeah, while there�s probably a person out there who gets a boner at the idea of wading through lovely pipes, there certainly aren�t enough shitfuckers to keep every major city�s poo poo pipes running smoothly, and the pipes getting unclogged shouldn�t have to wait for some perv�s refractory period.

Needless to say, I stopped talking to him after that.

Rich people probably should be put on an island somewhere, preferably without food or water

# ? Nov 5, 2018 15:34

John Wick of Dogs: Mar 4, 2017; A real hellraiser

corn in the bible posted:

Rich people probably should be put on an island somewhere, preferably without food or water

If you put a bunch of rich people on an island there is tautologically food there

# ? Nov 5, 2018 15:38

Brawnfire: Jul 13, 2004; 🎧Listen to Cylindricule!🎵
https://linktr.ee/Cylindricule

The moon's sort of like an island.

# ? Nov 5, 2018 15:49

BrandonGK: May 6, 2005; Throw it out the airlock.

Son of Sam-I-Am posted:

You guys are really disappearing up your own rear end (granted, I could come in to a Star Trek thread at virtually any point of discussion and say the same thing). Nobody watches Star Trek because of the economics, which are for the most part throwaway lines. Most people just take it in stride as part of the setting, like FTL and transporters, and even less so because it's brought up far less often.

Also I posted something like this in I think the Orville thread some time ago, but a lot of the values and ideals promoted on the show are pretty universal. Just in the setting of Starfleet alone you've got loyalty, both personal and professional, as well as courage, grand adventure and wonder, and a sense of duty, not solely to the laws and regulations, but to higher ideals and morality that are taken for granted as independent of and superseding them. Lol if you attribute all positive ideals to only those on your ideological side - oftentimes we divide up not on goals or ideals, but on competing methods or means of achieving them.

If you think about it longer than five seconds then you probably thought about it longer than the writers did tbh.

# ? Nov 5, 2018 15:55

The Noodle Incident: Aug 23, 2007; I DON�T WANT TO TALK ABOUT IT!

I could see someone wanting to work as a busboy for experience. Like say Grandpa Sisko says that he'll let you become a chef, but you have to bus tables and wash dishes for a year or two before you're even allowed to cook so you don't forget that your wait staff are people too. We've also been told that Starfleet may be hard to get into and advance in, so maybe a glowing recommendation from a federation citizen helps. Or maybe in the future it's not a bad job because people aren't jerks in future space golden age.

There's a lot about the Trek economy that doesn't make sense, but I could see reasons for people to do jobs that seem awful today.

# ? Nov 5, 2018 16:15

Brawnfire: Jul 13, 2004; 🎧Listen to Cylindricule!🎵
https://linktr.ee/Cylindricule

I feel like every job is fun if you don't *have* to do it day in and day out forever.

When you watch children play, they take on any role because they're curious about processes and interested in performing a task, not obsessed with the prestige associated with a role. I think of the ideal future as continually extending the period of juvenile exploration and creation. In that case, a bunch of friends who are excited about the idea of running a restaurant might get together and play with the concept, switch roles a bunch, and generally do whatever whenever they feel. Maybe that sucks for business, but it's not business so it doesn't matter. We're humans and we're living.

# ? Nov 5, 2018 16:28

Small Strange Bird: Sep 22, 2006; Merci, chaton!

Q_res posted:

Maybe there's some sort of hellish work-for-reward system. Maybe there's nicer apartments, hover cars, et cetera that you can request. However in exchange you have to take a job assignment from the government and put in a minimum number of hours in order to be allowed to have those nicer amenities. Of course, enrolling in Starfleet grants you unlimited access to the top tier of privileges and amenities.

Service guarantees (Federation) citizenship! Would you like to know more?

# ? Nov 5, 2018 16:33

Sash!: Mar 16, 2001

Brawnfire posted:

I feel like every job is fun if you don't *have* to do it day in and day out forever.

Some tasks are miserable, even if only only have to do it once ever.

# ? Nov 5, 2018 16:38

Tom Guycot: Oct 15, 2008; Chief of Governors

I always looked at it like this, the only resource thats really scarce anymore is land. So if you're someone who thinks it would be really fun to run a restaurant theres no capital for you to just buy a place and now its yours, there would be some council that decides how best to use all this public land. If you're just some random shlub who wants to open a restaurant, vs. someone who spent time working their way up from busboy apprenticing in a restaurant, they're going to go with the person who has the most desire and experience to care for that limited public resource. Much like they won't let a random person run a galaxy class starship, they're going with people who've dedicated their lives "apprenticing" in Starfleet.

The same thing with the Picard familly winery, the bulk of the wine is probably given out by lottery, and as long as the Picards are willing to work the vinyard it makes sense to keep experienced passionate people in charge of it. This also might explain why Picard's brother was so hostile towards him leaving, and giving his son ideas about leaving. If theres no one left in the family to learn and work it, then that public resource of a vinyard will get reassigned to someone who's passionate to producing wine, someone who's apprenticed and worked enough on them to have the experience to convince the local council to get the gig.

# ? Nov 5, 2018 16:52

Alan_Shore: Dec 2, 2004

Son of Sam-I-Am posted:

You guys are really disappearing up your own rear end (granted, I could come in to a Star Trek thread at virtually any point of discussion and say the same thing). Nobody watches Star Trek because of the economics, which are for the most part throwaway lines. Most people just take it in stride as part of the setting, like FTL and transporters, and even less so because it's brought up far less often.

Also I posted something like this in I think the Orville thread some time ago, but a lot of the values and ideals promoted on the show are pretty universal. Just in the setting of Starfleet alone you've got loyalty, both personal and professional, as well as courage, grand adventure and wonder, and a sense of duty, not solely to the laws and regulations, but to higher ideals and morality that are taken for granted as independent of and superseding them. Lol if you attribute all positive ideals to only those on your ideological side - oftentimes we divide up not on goals or ideals, but on competing methods or means of achieving them.

gently caress that, Star Trek hasn't persevered all this time because it has universal themes of heroism and loyalty. You can find that poo poo in Flash Gordon. Star Trek has a special kind of optimism about the human condition. It's why TNG is so comforting. I don't know about Ideology, but it's not a bunch of Republicans manning the Enterprise.

# ? Nov 5, 2018 17:02

The Bloop: Jul 5, 2004; by Fluffdaddy

In addition to land being scarce, so are many other things.

As indicated by Picard himself in First Contact, there is something important to humans about having "real" original things (touching the Phoenix before launch)

Sure, you could replicate a perfect copy of a Shakespeare first edition or a bottle of Chateau Picard 2249, but irrational as it may be, people want a real one.

Kivas Fajo didn't want a fake yet perceptually identical Mona Lisa, which would be trivially easy to obtain. He committed crimes to get the real one.

There is no post-scarcity solution for this, so some sort of reward system for doing necessary but distasteful work seems like a good compromise. Capitalism itself isn't even bad as long as the reasonable needs of the people are met first. No one in Trek is doing anything undignified or backbreaking just to survive.

# ? Nov 5, 2018 17:35

Tighclops: Jan 23, 2008; Unable to deal with it; Grimey Drawer

Alan_Shore posted:

gently caress that, Star Trek hasn't persevered all this time because it has universal themes of heroism and loyalty. You can find that poo poo in Flash Gordon. Star Trek has a special kind of optimism about the human condition. It's why TNG is so comforting. I don't know about Ideology, but it's not a bunch of Republicans manning the Enterprise.

Star Trek without the utopian futurism is at best forgettably generic, as the JJtrek movies have shown.

also lol if at this point you believe most conservatives have anything resembling real scruples, those people are capitulating to or outright becoming literal fascists in every western country right now. I think Star Trek had a thing or two to say about that kind of poo poo

# ? Nov 5, 2018 17:43

Winifred Madgers: Feb 12, 2002

Alan_Shore posted:

gently caress that, Star Trek hasn't persevered all this time because it has universal themes of heroism and loyalty. You can find that poo poo in Flash Gordon. Star Trek has a special kind of optimism about the human condition. It's why TNG is so comforting. I don't know about Ideology, but it's not a bunch of Republicans manning the Enterprise.

I didn't say exclusively. But values like these are appealing and can permit people of different ideologies to still enjoy a show they may not 100% agree with on every issue.

# ? Nov 5, 2018 18:27

Brawnfire: Jul 13, 2004; 🎧Listen to Cylindricule!🎵
https://linktr.ee/Cylindricule

The Bloop posted:

In addition to land being scarce, so are many other things.

As indicated by Picard himself in First Contact, there is something important to humans about having "real" original things (touching the Phoenix before launch)

Sure, you could replicate a perfect copy of a Shakespeare first edition or a bottle of Chateau Picard 2249, but irrational as it may be, people want a real one.

Kivas Fajo didn't want a fake yet perceptually identical Mona Lisa, which would be trivially easy to obtain. He committed crimes to get the real one.

There is no post-scarcity solution for this, so some sort of reward system for doing necessary but distasteful work seems like a good compromise. Capitalism itself isn't even bad as long as the reasonable needs of the people are met first. No one in Trek is doing anything undignified or backbreaking just to survive.

I super love Kivas Fajo because when I first saw the episode as a youth, I remember my feathers getting real ruffled by the idea of an alien one day taking some of Earth's finest works for his private little collection. It was this notion that was obscene for reasons I couldn't quite put to words at the time. And over time, I realized that this is how peoples who were victims of colonization feel all the time! Every day, right now! It really gave me a perspective on something humans do to one another, and the feel of the victim's side of things, which is what good Star Trek does.

# ? Nov 5, 2018 18:46

Tom Guycot: Oct 15, 2008; Chief of Governors

Son of Sam-I-Am posted:

I didn't say exclusively. But values like these are appealing and can permit people of different ideologies to still enjoy a show they may not 100% agree with on every issue.

Maybe, but things like "loyalty, both personal and professional, as well as courage, grand adventure and wonder, and a sense of duty," could describe Starship Troopers. Conversely I don't think I could stomach an un-ironic, played straight, fascist utopia world like that, that had those adventure and courage traits in it, so its always somewhat odd that staunch right wing folks don't care.

Though, maybe thats why all star trek since 2009 has been about bang bang shootem'up action so as not to take any kind of stance period and risk alienating a single dollar.

# ? Nov 5, 2018 19:09

spincube: Jan 31, 2006; I spent so I could say that I finally figured out what this god damned cube is doing. Get well Lowtax.; Grimey Drawer

The way I see it, just because you can get food out of a replicator doesn't mean you would, all the time. I could absolutely buy people still wanting to cook, and be cooked for, and served in a restaurant-like setting, simply for the joy of having someone make stuff for you that's not like anything else.

I'm pretty sure NASA discovered this ages ago, which is why astronauts don't have paste-food out of toothpaste tubes any more - something in the process of food preparation tickles the good-feelings part of our monkey brains.

Obviously I can't speak for an entire fictional futuristic civilisation's norms ( :rolleyes:

), but I suppose if everyone - guests, busboys, waiters, chefs - knows they're doing this because look! real food!!, it'd be enjoyable. Whereas every poor SOB who's worked food service in our timeline undoubtedly has a tale about some The Customer Is Always Right dickhead who wants power over minimum-wage serving staff more than they want sustenance.

# ? Nov 5, 2018 19:25

Retrowave Joe: Jul 20, 2001

And also, think about how much less food waste there�d be and opportunities to have your own restaurants if farmers could beam their crops anywhere on the planet, or grow virtually anywhere with advanced farming tech.

# ? Nov 5, 2018 19:56

Farmer Crack-Ass: Jan 2, 2001; this is me posting irl

spincube posted:

I'm pretty sure NASA discovered this ages ago, which is why astronauts don't have paste-food out of toothpaste tubes any more - something in the process of food preparation tickles the good-feelings part of our monkey brains.

Yeah I'm pretty sure the variety in taste and texture plays a bigger part in that added satisfaction than the 'process of food preparation'.

# ? Nov 5, 2018 20:02

Epicurius: Apr 10, 2010; College Slice

Retardog posted:

And also, think about how much less food waste there�d be and opportunities to have your own restaurants if farmers could beam their crops anywhere on the planet, or grow virtually anywhere with advanced farming tech.

Plus, food waste gets recycled into replicator raw material, I'd imagine.

# ? Nov 5, 2018 20:04

womb with a view: Sep 8, 2007

Oh god I just watched The Visitor :cry:

I can't stop :cry:

Jake-o, whyyyyyy :cry:

# ? Nov 5, 2018 20:24

Winifred Madgers: Feb 12, 2002

Tom Guycot posted:

Maybe, but things like "loyalty, both personal and professional, as well as courage, grand adventure and wonder, and a sense of duty," could describe Starship Troopers. Conversely I don't think I could stomach an un-ironic, played straight, fascist utopia world like that, that had those adventure and courage traits in it, so its always somewhat odd that staunch right wing folks don't care.

Though, maybe thats why all star trek since 2009 has been about bang bang shootem'up action so as not to take any kind of stance period and risk alienating a single dollar.

I'm not all that familiar with it, but isn't Warhammer 40K something like what you describe? A lot of people seem to like that at least as escapist fantasy. I think there's a certain amount of, I don't know what you'd want to call it, cognitive dissonance or whatever, that most people have to employ in order to enjoy most entertainment. I can't think of one entertainment property I agree with 100%. Some people draw different lines of what they're willing to tolerate, and at least speaking for myself as a self-described right-winger, most entertainment ranges from subtly to overtly slanted against my views in some respect, so if I watched only things I totally agree with I might as well throw my TV in the dumpster.

On top of that I think most of you have a very strange conception of normal right-wing folks.

# ? Nov 5, 2018 20:28

Sash!: Mar 16, 2001

Farmer Crack-rear end posted:

Yeah I'm pretty sure the variety in taste and texture plays a bigger part in that added satisfaction than the 'process of food preparation'.

Astronauts use their personal time on the ISS to make fancier meals than what flew and it does improve morale.

# ? Nov 5, 2018 20:29

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# ? Jun 5, 2024 13:45

PostNouveau: Sep 3, 2011; VY till I die; Grimey Drawer

See, the economics of Earth utopia are pretty interesting and definitely need to be addressed in the Picard series. I wanna if they got local councils assigning resources or something.

The Bloop posted:

Capitalism itself isn't even bad

# ? Nov 5, 2018 20:33

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > TV IV > Star Trek: *hits blunt* The higher, the fewerrrrrr

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